The Republican Congressional candidate seeking to unseat Maxine Waters (D-Calif) came under a blistering attack Friday night during a Facebook live stream presentation hosted by two individuals who are actively involved in the Southern California patriot movement.

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Nikki Cilantra and Johnny Benitez posted screenshots (see below) of alleged communications between Omar Navarro and other individuals in which he referred to Cilantra as a "wetback" and intimated a willingness to exact some sort of physical retribution or retaliation against Benitez. Both Cilantra and Benitez have been engaged in an ongoing feud with Navarro for several weeks.

The disturbing screenshots include conversations with another individual named "Kim" who uses the words "niggers" and "wetbacks." The comments attributed to Navarro suggests he knows "Kim" fairly well and that she may be a campaign supporter or volunteer.

At one point while discussing campaign strategy and optics, Navarro suggests that he is only interested in using Trump supporters to gain financial support and that he prefers to not interact or be seen with them at various functions and events. One sentence reads: "i just need the trump group to get money on my go fund me [sic]."

A series of screenshots of a purported Facebook private message chain provided by Cilantra and Benitez can be viewed below (click to enlarge):​

We have been unable to verify the authenticity of these messages.​ However, it would seem that one might be able to ascertain the veracity of these screenshots by merely evaluating the writing style of the statements attributed to Navarro.

​There are some curious misspellings with some of them repeated. For example, using "know" when he meant "now", "indorse", or "fucken." Additionally, you have a unique sentence structure with heavy usage of run-on sentences and infrequent punctuation.

Perhaps most damaging is that the comments attributed to Navarro contain numerous details that only he or others super close or familiar to his exploits would ​be privy to. This included the criticism of David Hernandez and recounting of how open border activists had only recently begun targeting him at Torrance City Council meetings.

​Not only do you have a personal attack on an individual that, if truly said, would have most likely been uttered in other online and offline conversations, you have a reference to an extremely recent development at the council meetings. And there are many other specific details in these rather long passages of text that I believe will make analysis and authentication much easier to determine.

I reached out to Navarro via Facebook message and his campaign phone number but was unable to get a public comment for this post.

Benitez and Cilantra stated that they attempted to reach out to Navarro on several occasions to speak about these issues directly. "He promised to call Nikki twice about this and stood her up twice," Benitez said in a request for comment.

Benitez claimed during his live feed to have received the screenshots by way of a "sock puppet account" some time ago.​

If these screenshots are legitimate it would seem to indicate that either the other person in the conversation leaked them or some unknown party gained access to her account and downloaded them.​ However, it would seem highly unlikely that an individual would leak their own messages that contain the usage of various racial slurs suggesting that a disgruntled third party was the culprit.

Another potential possibility is that the screenshots were fabricated as part of some sort of personal or political vendetta by either Cilantra or Benitez, or by another party seeking to use the pair to destroy Navarro's campaign. The pair adamantly deny any suggestion that they fabricated the images themselves.

In a Facebook private message response, Cilantra maintains that she had no part in the creation of the screenshots and believes that they are legitimate because they contained "detailed information that he has said to others...and the fact that he spoke of the conversation we had at [a] BBQ."

Similarly, Benitez stated he posted the images because they contained real facts about his life that other people wouldn't have known and because Navarro had previously threatened him in text messages sent to another individual named Irma Hinojosa, a woman he is now in a relationship with (see below).

The timing of these charges come just as the Navarro campaign had really begun to gather some momentum. He recently announced that Roger Stone had joined the campaign as a strategist.

It will be interesting to see if this story gains any traction and whether or not the Navarro campaign responds. In the rough and tumble world of politics punches seldom land harder than this. The manner in which the campaign responds to these accusations will go a long way in shedding some light as to whether or not it is ready for prime time.

I would fully expect leftist media outlets and activists to pounce on this developing story.​

In closing, It would be unfair to not broach the fact that Benitez has his set of detractors in the movement. Many have looked at him with suspicion due in large part to an article that was published by OC Weekly. Benitez has repeatedly acknowledge the article and done several live streams on Facebook where he has articulated his political transformation.

This is a terribly sad episode where there is no such thing as a good outcome. Either someone many looked up to and supported turned out to be a fraud or other individual(s) have conjured up an elaborate hoax to smear a young man who stepped into the arena.​

Joseph Turner is the founder and executive director for American Children First. He is a nationalist hardliner on illegal immigration issues and considered one of the foremost visionary and strategic thinkers in the movement. Previously, he founded the California-based anti-illegal immigration group Save Our State in 2004. He also authored the Illegal Immigration Relief Act (IIRA) in 2005 which served as the model blueprint for dozens of other cities, most notably Hazleton (PA) and Farmers Branch (TX). The IIRA is believed to have represented the first ever attempt to use the local initiative process to combat illegal immigration in the United States.